Soon, Only Rich Homeowners Will Be Allowed to Smoke

Hey, we get it: Smoking is bad for you. Awful. It’ll give you cancer and rot your body and gross gross gross, death death death. Got it. Still. Maybe it’s a little tiresome to watch authorities go through all the permutations of banning smoking without, you know, banning it.

The Inquirer reports that 45 of the state’s 67 counties have at least one smoke-free “multihousing unit”—this, following a message from the Department of Health encouraging (but not mandating) landlords to ban smoking on their premises.

On Feb. 1, the Village of Pennbrook Apartments in Levittown banned smoking in all common areas of the Bucks County complex, including inside a parked car. The owner of the complex, AIMCO, is a publicly traded apartment investor that has other properties in Bucks County, Philadelphia, and across the United States that are phasing in smoke-free policies.

"One of our priorities at AIMCO is to provide a healthy, clean, and comfortable environment for our residents," said AIMCO spokeswoman Cindy Duffy. "We believe our smoke-free amenity supports that goal directly. We see it as a health benefit to have cleaner air."

People caught smoking in the common areas are warned about the policy and, if they continue to flout it, could be evicted.

Hey, smoking is bad. but harassing people who can't afford to buy their own house seems, if not a bit liberty-tromping, maybe grossly paternalistic. If you're going to ban it, just ban it folks. Letting people buy cigarettes they can't legally smoke anywhere is just going to be silly.

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phillysportsfan

“We don’t smoke that s_ _ _. We just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black and stupid.”

R.J. Reynolds executive’s reply when
asked why he didn’t smoke according to Dave Goerlitz, lead Winston model
for seven years for R.J. Reynolds.] Giovanni, J, “Come to Cancer
Country; USA; Focus,” The Times of London, August 2, 1992.

so what you’re arguing, is to keep the tobacco industry’s market open, essentially.

crateish

Smoking restrictions are about protecting the non-smokers around them. This is what smokers refuse to understand.

Matthew Howe

How exactly does forbidding somebody to smoke in their own parked car protect anyone? The exhaust from the car idling while that person smokes is far worse than the second hand smoke created by the cigarette.

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